The Inevitably-Named "Rape in RPGs"
It's funny. I'm always hearing horror stories about in-game rape, but no one ever seems to want to do anything about it – even write an article. In fact, it seems as though people are frequently surprised to hear that it's a common problem – and there are too many people who refuse to admit that it's a problem in the first place. This article is an attempt to address the problem, explaining what's acceptable, what's not, and what you should watch out for.
If you're like me, you may be wondering why I'm even bothering to write this article. "Of course no one is going to rape someone's character without being absolutely, positively sure it's okay with them," you may be thinking. "Right?" Wrong. Throughout my years of gaming experience I've heard continual stories of players' characters being raped when it really, really wasn't even remotely okay at all – I've even been there for a couple such incidents – and I think it's an important enough issue that it ought to be addressed in clear, certain terms. I also think there are a lot of peripheral issues that aren't immediately considered when we discuss rape in gaming, and I'm going to try to address all of them here. (Wish me luck!) For another related Gamegrene article, take a look at On Verant's Banning of Mystere, concerning fanfiction, child rape (and its female author) and EverQuest. --Morbus Iff
Why you shouldn't use rape – without permission
We, sweet and trusting players that we are, all put our characters in the hands of the GM, and we all (generally) expect a certain amount of trauma to result for the poor things. Their entire families may be killed; their lovers may be grabbed and held at gunpoint; they may even die. These are the kinds of risks we accept as normal when we decide to participate in a roleplaying game – we agree, essentially, that bad things can happen to our characters.
However, although you may disagree, there are a number of people who consider rape to go over the line, even when they're okay with the rest of the horrible events I've listed. Why? It's complicated. I don't think I'm going to be able to explain why some people consider rape to be the absolute worst possible thing that can be done to a human being if you don't already understand that viewpoint. But, believe me, there are an awful lot of people out there who think so.
one of the top three Cardinal Sins of GMing
I'm sure you've heard this a lot, but I'll repeat it again: it is the GM's job to keep the game comfortable for everyone. This involves a certain degree of sensitivity to the wishes of the players, and that means that even if you don't think rape is all that bad an experience, you have to be aware that there are lots of people who do. I can't emphasize this enough: if you decide to have one of the player characters raped in one of your games, and you don't get the player's explicit permission first, then you are doing an Extremely Bad Thing – in fact, I would call this one of the top three Cardinal Sins of GMing, if not the Cardinal Sin.
I don't want you to think I'm being overly dramatic here – but this is a dramatic issue. I know people (yes, more than one person) who have had characters raped, and later had nightmares about the experience – yes, actual real-life, wake-up-screaming nightmares! I know of gaming groups that fell apart because of one rape scene, and people who never spoke to each other again. I know of people who swore off gaming forever because they had a character raped and were so sickened that they couldn't stomach ever roleplaying again. I also know of people who were raped in real life, then had a character raped in a roleplaying game and had to deal with all of their horrible emotional baggage over again because of one GM's insensitivity. Stories like these are the reason you have to be careful and respectful – do you really want to be responsible for cruelly messing around with someone's psyche like that? (If your answer was 'yes', then please provide me with your name, address and least favourite way to die for ... uh ... no reason.)
Now, obviously, if you have a player's permission to have his or her character raped, then far be it from me to tell you not to. However, on the topic of asking permission, I do have a few pieces of advice. If you do get permission, I very much highly extremely recommend using the "fade to black" approach for the rape scene itself.
- If you feel at all uncomfortable asking a player for permission to have their character raped, then you should take that as a strong indicator that you shouldn't be considering having their character raped at all.
- Make sure that you explicitly ask for permission to have the player's character raped. Many players are just fine with playing in horrifying, disturbingly gritty games, but still draw the line at rape. Don't ask, "Is it okay with you if I run a gritty and traumatic game?" and then assume that because the player answers "Yes," they've given you permission to have their character raped. Ask, "Is it all right with you if I have your character coerced into sex acts against his / her will?" (Even asking the question, "Is it all right with you if I have your character raped?" is a little bit dicey, because in some circles the word "rape" is frequently used in its alternate meaning of "abusive or improper treatment", and it's possible that the player will mistake your meaning. I wouldn't say that this is likely, but hey, I figure we should cover all the bases here; besides, I want to see if I can make it to double the recommended word count and really piss Morbus off. /me grumbles. --Morbus Iff)
- Make sure the player knows it really is okay if he or she answers, "No." Players, especially new or inexperienced players, are frequently intimidated by established (or even just large) gaming groups – and particularly by the GM. A player will not want to be labelled a "bad player", "not a team player", "annoying", "histrionic" or what have you, and sometimes players will say that they're okay with things that they aren't okay with because they don't want to seem like a problem. Make it clear to the player that acceptance into the group and good opinion of other group members is not contingent on them saying "Yes" to character rape.
- You should make sure that everyone playing in the game is okay with you bringing rape into the game – not just the players whose characters are affected. Other players are going to be involved too, after all, and it's entirely possible that some of them don't want to deal with that kind of thing, even peripherally.
Why people sometimes don't speak up
gently but firmly say something!
Don't assume that just because someone has had characters raped before in your presence and didn't say anything, they were fine with it. A lot of the time, players simply don't want to make a fuss. I've seen this happen multiple times – a player has a character raped, and although she (or potentially he, but I've never seen this happen to a man) is very upset about it, she keeps quiet and tries to laugh it off because she doesn't want to make a scene or offend the group.
Naturally, if you're a player in such a situation, I advise you to gently but firmly say something! If a GM even starts to put your character into a rape situation (or, of course, any situation you aren't okay with) then say, "I'm not comfortable with this." If your GM continues despite this, or you catch flak from the GM or the group for saying it, then I will personally help you skin the offender(s) and dump their bodies in the river. (Okay, not really. Don't do this – it'll just result in more groups like BADD.)
Opposite-sex characters
For some reason, apparently, people who would never consider having a female player's character raped have been known to have male players' characters raped. I'm here to tell you that the assumption that a man is going to be okay with having his (female or otherwise) character raped just because he's male is an extremely flawed one. It is also an assumption that many people find offensive and disturbing – there are lots of people, including men, who are disgusted by the implication that men are "okay" with rape just because they're male. The idea that rape is solely a "women's problem" is not only statistically incorrect (more men, for example, are gang-raped in the United States than women); it also implies that men are unaffected when women are raped, and I'm sure any man whose wife or daughter has been raped can explain to you quite clearly why this is not the case. More to the point, men are just as capable as women of relating to and understanding the potential mind-numbing horror of the act, and therefore can be just as angry and hurt if it happens to their characters as any woman might be. In short, you should go through the same steps in confirming that potential in-game rape is all right with your male players as you would with a female player.
"Justifications" for in-game rape
I can think of no justification I would accept for having a character raped without the player's permission. I am going to present some situations that people have claimed (or potentially could claim) as acceptable reasons to have characters raped without permission, because rationalization is a powerful and pervasive thing, and I want to discourage it as much as possible (in this context, that is – I'm not about to tell you that you can't rationalize as much as you want about, say, buying that new $30 supplement).
- "But it's realistic!" I can't tell you how often I've heard this one. "Hey, your character is gorgeous, wearing a tight bodysuit, and alone in a horrible neighbourhood of a major modern city at night. Of course she's going to get raped!" "Hey, your character has been taken captive by a barbarian tribe. Of course she's going to get raped!" Now I tell you, and I tell you truly, that I am normally one of the biggest advocates for realism in gaming ever. Realism is very important to me – in my opinion, it makes a game infinitely better. Regardless, I still flat-out forbid my GMs from having my characters raped, and I consider my discomfort with the idea to be more than enough reason to keep rape out of the game. Realism should never be prioritized above basic sensitivity to a player's feelings – and even players who prefer realism to a seemingly-psychotic extent will often tell you that they're still not comfortable with character rape.
Realism should never be prioritized over player feelings
Furthermore, there are always other ways to address realism – I can think of no situation in which rape would be an inevitability, especially when you, as the GM, have infinite control of events and personalities. If you want to make a character's dangerous situation clear, there are other ways to do it. Is the character a frail, attractive woman alone at night? Have her mugged and stabbed. The character got taken captive by a barbarian tribe? Decide that the tribe has a taboo against sex with captives, but have the character beaten or forced to fight in mock-gladiatorial combat or something. Maybe that sadistic nemesis who has managed to take the character into captivity simply finds the character too personally annoying to rape – or maybe they're even impotent / frigid. A little creativity can make short work of "realistic necessity".
- The character is a courtesan, extremely promiscuous, or victim of a previous rape. The fact that a given character sells sex for money, or even just has lots of sex for no reason at all, does not mean that it is automatically okay to have them raped. You should still ask permission – you might be surprised at how some people who play courtesans, or whatever, feel about having their characters raped. It is also worth noting that some people make characters whose backstories state they've been raped before. Do not take this as a signal that you can have their character raped again with impunity – in fact, you should be ultra-sensitive even in terms of mere simple romance with such a character.
"Disguised" rape
There are a number of situations that may arise, particularly in fantasy games, that don't necessarily appear to be rape per se. Let's briefly examine the definition of rape (that is, the definition that applies here – obviously, for the purposes of this article, I'm ignoring such definitions as "the refuse of grapes left after the extraction of the juice in winemaking"). (Bet you didn't know that one, did you?)
rape: (noun) unlawful sexual activity and usually sexual intercourse carried out forcibly or under threat of injury against the will usually of a female or with a person who is beneath a certain age or incapable of valid consent because of mental illness, mental deficiency, intoxication, unconsciousness, or deception.
Let's go on to specific situations:
- "But you had a choice!" The character is given a "choice" – for example, "Sleep with me or your lover dies!" This counts as rape. Even if the character could, hypothetically, get out of the situation by risking their life, or causing a war, or whatever, and chooses to have sex rather than initiate the catastrophic consequence, it's still rape. "Valid consent" means consent without duress, and thus, obviously, if the character is under duress, then he or she cannot give valid consent. Don't hide behind such excuses as, "But you could have fought an army single-handedly with nothing but a toothpick and conceivably survived to escape your rapist!" And don't force your players to have their characters make choices like that unless, as always, you have their explicit and prior consent.
- Deception can come in all sorts of forms, and roleplaying games tend to only increase the possibilities. My personal favourite example is the shapeshifter clause: a shapeshifter takes on the form of someone else, for example, a player character's lover, and "seduces" the player character. I've had GMs claim that this "didn't count" as rape for some reason – even in cases in which the "seduced" player character character would not have had consensual sex with the shapeshifter had they known the shapeshifter's true identity. Obviously, deception can come in more mundane forms as well, such as merely lying ("But of course I'm not your arch-nemesis, darling").
"of course I'm not your arch- nemesis, darling"
It's worth noting that having a player character tricked into having sex – particularly by smooth talkin' – is not necessarily as likely to cause the same kind of hurt feelings, anger and recriminations that can arise from having a player character forcibly raped against their immediate will; and there are many players who will be fine with having their characters tricked into sex who would be appalled by the idea of having their characters raped in a more physically coercive way. However – as always – I recommend that you inquire beforehand, because there's a fair number of people that are going to consider this kind of thing just as bad as any other form of rape.
- The "Charm Person" effect. A person who is magically enchanted into falling in love with someone and / or wanting to sleep with them, who then sleeps with them, has been raped. Period. And, because I have to say this so often that it becomes annoying, you should make sure to ask whether it's okay first.
- Threats. With some players, having a character threatened with rape will upset them almost as much as actually having the character raped. Even if you think that the threat of rape would be the best possible way to motivate your plot, and even if you are positive that the threat will never, ever escalate into in-game reality, you should employ the same sensitivity as you would with the "real thing".
Peripheral issues
Now I'm going to talk about a couple of issues that, while not rape, still ought to be mentioned in this article. These may not involve in-game rape, but for out-of-game reasons they're still unacceptable because they're forcing a player to play out sexual situations that he or she may not want to deal with. The character may not have been raped, and there is thus no reason for the character to exhibit long-term psychological rape trauma effects – but making the characters in your game do sexual things that the players don't want their characters doing is a kind of mental violation, and it is liable to lead to some of the same consequences that having a character raped might (for example, alienation and disgust with the game).
Forcing the characters to deal with the things I'm about to outline also takes a large part of the entertainment out of the game for many people because it turns things into GM decisions that should be player decisions. For example, wouldn't you be annoyed if a GM had a non-player character approach your character and suggest something to them, and then said, "Okay, because your character is tired and depressed and not very strong-willed, your character was just persuaded"? What's the point of playing the game if you, as a player, aren't going to have any real control over your character and their development? A character, and a gaming situation, is more than just a group of statistics and abstract descriptors, and some things should just be left up to the player – for flavour, if for no other reason. These are a couple of them.
- Die-roll seductions. I'm going to state for the record, before I discuss this, that it is my opinion that if someone gives someone else permission to have sex with them, then they cannot later say that they were raped (unless, of course, they were definitely not in their right mind, e.g. they had just drunk a liter of vodka). So don't start with me on that score. However, seduction in roleplaying games can be a little bit different because of the dice factor. In real life, someone can't walk up to you and say, "I just rolled a 20 on my Charisma check, so that means you have to sleep with me." Unfortunately, situations like this have been known to happen in roleplaying games. They shouldn't. Keep in mind that people put a lot of care and love into their characters and sex is an extremely personal thing – not just in real life, but also in character-building – and some people are going to be really upset if you inform them that they don't get to decide who their character voluntarily sleeps with. And, just as with the rape issue, it's a good idea to respect such opinions even if you don't agree with them; you're a lot less likely to offend people and lose players (and possibly friends) that way.
may be violating a very personal part of character- building
I do understand that some games actually implement statistics to try to measure characters' personalities, and that sometimes such statistics will purport to measure such variables as how seduceable a character is (for example, the "Temperance Virtue" in the White Wolf game Exalted). Therefore, when playing such a game, it may be tempting to force a player to make a roll based on one of those "personality statistics" in order to determine whether or not they are seduced by someone. Even if a player has given their character statistics that would seem to indicate that he or she is highly seduceable, I still think it's a bad idea to force a player to roll dice in order to see if their character is seduced. Maybe they did stat out a "seduceable" character, and maybe they should have expected to therefore be easily seduced, but the fact remains that forcing a player to have their character sleep with someone because of a dice roll may be violating a very personal part of their character-building effort. If you find you really can't expect the player to make the kind of decisions the character they have built would make based on the character's statistics, then I suggest you remind them their character's decisions aren't reflecting their statted-out "personality". If the problem persists, tell the player you're going to make them spend experience – or whatever – to change their "personality statistics" unless they begin to play their character in line with those statistics. But don't, repeat don't, make the decision of how the character acts sexually for the player, and don't have the dice do it either – unless, obviously, the player has told you explicitly that that is okay with them.
- Pregnancy. Don't get characters pregnant without the player's explicit and prior permission. It doesn't matter if they're being promiscuous and acting in such a way that they're extremely liable to get pregnant; don't do it. You also shouldn't sterilize a character without permission, or force a character who is pregnant to miscarry or get an abortion without permission. These may seem like minor or even amusing things, but they have the potential to really offend people – probably not as much as, say, having a character raped, but enough that you should avoid it unless you know it's fine. (I should say here that I've never seen a player whose character was male get offended by the GM's sudden introduction of a pregnancy or an unknown child by means of someone the character slept with; this is, apparently, a much less sensitive issue than messing around with a female character's pregnancy or nonpregnancy. Regardless... you know the drill.)
Player characters initiating rape
So, welcome to the end of this long-ass article. You'll note that I didn't address one thing: the possibility of the players having their characters rape others, whether the "others" be player characters or GM characters. I think that everything I've said here can be easily applied to players as well as GMs – although players don't have the same overarching responsibility as GMs, they still should employ some elementary sensitivity, and try to be nice to each other. I can definitely tell you that as a GM, if I had a player in one of my games say anything along the lines of "I rape so-and-so ..." I would stop right there and tell them to get the hell out of my game – I, for one, don't want to deal with the issue of rape in my games. That's just my opinion, of course – but it's shared by a lot of people. If you want to play a character who rapes people, I'm sure there are circles you can find in which it would be acceptable – but if you go assuming that it's acceptable everywhere, you're going to have to be prepared for some potentially nasty consequences.
One last note: I've actually heard of GMs coming under pressure from their players to include rape in games. Always remember that, as GM, you may be proverbially expected to "keep the game comfortable for everyone" – but that definitely includes yourself. If your players want you to put rape in your games and you're uncomfortable with it, then you are absolutely, positively not required to do it.
I'd be interested to know if there are any in-game rape situations that people think I failed to cover.
This is where I apologize if I sounded patronizing or if you think I was offensive. I think it's an important enough topic to be worth potentially offending some people. As for patronization – well, as noted, I've heard of all of the situations listed here happening at least once, and many have come up in my presence; I'm only addressing this stuff because I've realized some gamers honestly don't understand it, not because I want to talk down to you. If you think that any of this shouldn't need to be said, well, reality evidences otherwise – and I can only hope that this article goes a little ways towards changing that reality.
Off-site references
- A Rape In Cyberspace – Julian Dibbell's landmark article about a rape case in a MUD helps highlight the strong feelings people have about the matter of raped characters, as well as the self-consciousness and occasional difficulty people have coming to terms with those feelings. (Thanks for the link to Morbus Iff.)
- Pursuing the Libido's Dark Side – An article about the (currently in beta) MMORPG Sociolotron (which has implemented commands that allow characters to rape each other) that discusses how people react to that aspect of it and why people voluntarily participate.
- Rape in Role Playing Games – An archived thread from a discussion group for gamerchicks that, in an comparatively coherent and well-written way, discusses a lot of their specific experiences with the subject.
- I'd also like to note an article by a certain A. Whetton (titled, shockingly enough, "Rape in RPGs") that has been constantly recommended to me. I can't find it, but it's supposed to be a must-read. It's been published separately, but was apparently first published as a chapter in the game Principia Malefex.
Lydia Laurenson, a.k.a. Shataina, is a freelance writer who's primarily done work on White Wolf's "Exalted".
You can contact her at shataina(at)gmail.com.
- 37022 reads
Good article, Shataina.
I think the key here is player-to-GM communication. Know Thy Group should be a primary commandment for GMs. Whenever things get into a zone of potential awkwardness, stop the game and discuss what's going on (or what might potentially go on).
We play games to have fun, and there's no reason to violate that principle. When gamers say "...but it's realistic!" as an excuse for whatever annoying thing they happen to be perpetrating at the time, I have to ask: "how does it contribute to the fun?" If it doesn't, I don't think it belongs in the game. I most frequently run into this problem between players, oddly enough: people want to victimize each other over their IC motivations. "But IC my character would do this..." seems to be a favorite rationale for starting many an argument. I wind up having to say: "these characters, these situations, they AREN'T REAL. Snap out of it!"
I'll admit to feeling a little awkwardness reading this article because I am currently running a campaign that has included some Sick And Twisted Sh*t(TM):
*Edit: I don't mean to imply that homosexuality is "sick" or "twisted." I only include it in this list because frank discussions of homosexuality tend to get treated in a stereotypical or dismissive fashion in RPGs. Sexuality can make people uncomfortable, regardless of its orientation!
I can understand why Shataina or anyone else might not feel comfortable participating in such a campaign. Sometimes it creeps even ME out. I can only say that I've made an effort to lay all my cards on the table in an OOC fashion: this is the kind of setting I've envisioned, these are the sorts of things that might happen, this is what the society is like, and so on. Before a long-term Bit of Unpleasantness for a certain character, I took pains to discuss the probable consequences with the player and make sure she understood that the point was to weave an interesting story and not to be a perv, or make her uncomfortable, or anything like that. I did say: we don't have to go here. She understood and was a good sport, and I felt we created a very interesting thread.
Even then, I have to observe that one of my female players (and a longtime friend of mine) has complained that female characters get singled out for abuse. I feel this is an unfair charge, and the other female players don't seem to support her in this, but I have to emphasize it's a touchy subject. The fact that someone complains at all makes me wonder if it was a good idea to run such a game.
I would like to add a few additional comments:
Again - Shataina, thanks for your insight. I'm not seeking absolution here, just trying to share my own thoughts and experiences on the subject.
Wow, a very well covered (and courageous) article.
We had one game where the GM had a PC raped, and although the GM still played with our group, he was never made GM again. Fortunately for the PC's player, the actual rape wasn't graphic, so the trauma of the actual rape was low. But that player never played that character again, and was quite irritated at the GM.
I also prefer a game with realism, but it is after all only a game, and there are some aspects of "the real" that I don't feel are appropriate for a game-- this is one of them. I have said on previous posts that the game is all about having fun, and if the group isn't having fun, then what's the point of it all.
Thanks for writing on this topic. Whether or not it needed to be written, I think it needs to be read.
It occurs to me that I may seem to be one of the People Who Fundamentally Don't Get It, or worse, one of the People In Denial That This Is A Problem.
So let me say that I don't mean to undercut your point in any way. Your article was thought-provoking enough that I am examining my own assumptions about what is acceptable. What did my campaign's twistedness bring to the table that it wouldn't have had otherwise? In the final analysis, I'm not sure that the "realism" or vividness of the setting is worth the potential price to be paid in terms of friendship, mutual respect, and mental health.
As a sidenote, this is one of the less-mentioned (but still considered) advantages of Paranoia: the ample amounts of hormone suppressants cuts out 99% of potential "encounters". (As for the other 1%, if you want sex in games, you shouldn't be playing Paranoia.) Combined with the knee-jerk "DELETED FOR SECURITY REASONS" censorship of cuss words and you have one of the more kid-friendly RPGs out there. (That is, if you don't mind the violence, anti-social behavior and the humorously depressing viewpoint.)
As for my other games, I've never had one where sex came up, let alone rape. Either I'm lucky, or most of the groups out there consider sex a forbidden topic.
-Mike Lemmer
I agree with the Timer -- big shock, huh?
I use the aspect of rape lightly -- it has happened to one of our NPC's, who was rescued from a prison after-the-incident. The odd villain has used it as the odd threat...but that's about as much as I use it.
If one of my player's came up and said "gee, I want my wizard to get raped by Moloch down the road." Well...even then, I'm not sure I'd do it.
I'm one of those people who find rape to be one of the extreme evils. It may be sophomoric of me to think so, but I consider it worse than murder. Yes, I understand that there are a lot of rape survivors who have gotten past their trials...and I admire them 'cause, quite frankly, I'm not sure if I'd be able to endure that kind of trauma and humiliation -- I have no desire to find out.
Sure, rape is a real-life event...not sure it belongs at the gaming table. Anyone who argues that the inclusion of rape in a game makes the game "better" should probablly rethink that stance -- I think it's okay if it's used as an off-screen detail for some NPC...or for some backstory or something...but to make it a focal point of any gaming session...eh...I can't throw in with that.
Anyone who argues that it makes the game more "real"...well, I don't play games for the realism, per se, but to have fun (as the Timer says). Famine is real too...but I can't think of a game where the players sat around and starved to death. "Okay...it's your 8th day in the Endless Desert...what do you do...nope, search for water fails...another day passes..."
There's just something weird about a GM wanting to have a character raped...and I'm not sure I'd want that person coming over to my house. One could argue that a GM that does such a thing has commited virtual rape -- again, why would any healty person want to do that?
Rogue, buddy... where ya been?
Thanks for your support and insight... well worth it, as usual.
Come to think of it, we may have had an NPC-behind-the-scenes-rescued-after-the-fact kind of rape in a game. Boy, that was some time ago. In that regard, I can see how it can work with a campaign's storyline. Doesn't need to be shown; just understood that it happened.
Great example of famine... heh. Have to try that one sometime.
The only "comical" rape scene we had was where a player wanted to play a half-orc character... and his background was that his mother was the orc.
Think about it...
... (ugh!) gives me the willies.
Thanks, and I'm glad you found it helpful. For what it's worth, it doesn't sound to me as though you "fundamentally don't get it" -- not that I can, you know, judge at all from my computer screen. But especially since you've said that it's important to know what your players are comfortable with and that you've laid all your cards on the table and checked beforehand ... well, as I said, it sounds to me like you've done everything the way I would want a GM to do it if they were running a game for me, especially with the explicit asking of permission. I find it very difficult to say that anyone's doing anything wrong as long as everyone involved in [whatever] is a consenting adult.
It is interesting to think about what such twistedness actually accomplishes, isn't it? One might say that it's a good way to get people emotionally involved, but it seems as though there are always other ways to do that. I wonder what it is that attracts us to that sort of thing?
Heh! Thanks, although I'm not sure "courageous" is accurate!
As much as this topic is distasteful in many ways, I think it's interesting to watch how people react to their characters once they've been raped. The fact that that player chose to never play the character again is telling, I think -- I had a very similar experience, where a character I loved was subjected to so much horror and trauma that eventually I just couldn't bring myself to play her anymore (although occasionally I consider trying).
Wow! "Sophomoric"? The minute I see that word applied to this, I become curious about why you would even think that. Although I think I can understand it ... I've definitely come upon the attitude myself that rape "just isn't that bad". I think the problem is that some people really think that if *they* were raped, they'd get over it without any real trauma (and hey, maybe they're right). To directly quote someone I know: "If I were raped, I'd be pissed, but that's all." I think people like this are prone to thinking things like, "Since I can / could get over rape easily, anyone who couldn't is just a weakling who needs some backbone."
As if it weren't obvious enough, I certainly don't think that considering rape to be one of extreme evils is sophomoric! Not to, you know, come down too hard on anyone -- but I definitely think it's extraordinarily sophomoric *not* to regard rape as one of the extreme evils.
I have to say that I do like some very occasional and usually understated romance in my games, so it's tough for me to say that it's an all-around advantage for a game to eliminate it like that.
Still, it's tough, and I do have to say that ensuring that my characters wouldn't be raped -- even at the cost of any possible kind of romantic encounter -- could potentially be very worth it from my end, especially for cases when I'd be playing with GMs I didn't know / trust.
an interesting and thought provoking read. thanks, shataina.
Yeah, I hear what you're saying.
In all honesty, I have a greater fear of rape than death. If somebody attacks me with the intent to kill, I know I'll go down fighting...and, for some Conan-ish reason, that's okay with me. If I just get raped instead...then I'll be left to deal with that forever...and in today's society, there's no retaliation I can take that would be satisfying -- sorry, but suing someone and putting them in jail...well, these days, how gratifying is that...especially when you know that guy is gonna be back on the streets in a few years.
I guess the reason my stance is seen as sophomoric by some of the people I know is that I have different beliefs regarding life. I cherish life...but know that I'm mortal and will die...and, honestly, the 14 year old in me had rather go down in a fight than die slowly with some rotting disease. Yes, life is good...but I don't completely agree with the notion of clinging on to every last drop...and I'd rather have my life snuffed out than ruined. But, a lot of my opponents tell me that I'm wrong...that one should opt for life no matter what. Eh...I'm not so sure.
I think a lot of the problem is that we...as a society...have made rape a sensation. It used to be a taboo subject, but now we have numerous TV shows that put it in the highlight. At the same time, we Americans have a lot of hang-ups regarding sexuality...and a number of people insist of calling rape "a crime of violence." Well, sure, it's violence...but it's also sex. If I beat up someone with a bat...or, if a husband beats a wife...that's violence. If I rape a woman...it's not just violence.
I think we've "canned" rape in such a way that a lot of people think they'd get past it...after all, don't the characters on TV move on? And I think we've made rape more "okay" by saying that it's "just violence." I grew up in some rough neighborhoods when I was in junior-high and got into a few fights at school...that was violence...but it definately wasn't rape.
Part of my angst over rape is that I consider myself to be very free-willed. I don't like to be controlled by others...and, to me, rape would be the epitome of loss-of-control. I hate that notion.
Of course...I live in a good part of the country and the only way that I'm likely to get raped is if I cave in...bash in my boss's head with an axe...and go to prison.
To me...it's a complicated, touchy subject...and I don't feel that it's handled well by the media. These rape-dramas don't do due justice in showing the trauma...I don't think. And us non-rape victims with non-rape victims in the family...heck, we might not even know what we're talking about.
Even so...I still think rape is a great evil that has been severly downplayed by American society.
And...for me...it's a bit too touchy to include in my games in direct fashion.
As a further note, I thought of a couple examples that I've directly witnessed / heard firsthand accounts about, so you can see what I mean by the people who *really* don't get it.
1) A girl has a character raped, and has nightmares about it. She diffidently mentions one of the nightmares to a few guys from her gaming group. They laugh at her, then occasionally deliberately refer to the rape incident for months afterwards, in a "playful" attempt to bug her.
2) A girl has a character semi-violently raped. The character is (obviously) severely mentally scarred, etc; the girl also takes it very badly. Though she thinks her GM understands that it was a really awful event and he should never ever do anything like that again, he has the same character raped again later in the same game. The first time she tries to directly speak to him about how bad the experience was, he argues with her about how comparatively negative an experience rape is, with such lines as: "I mean, would you rather lose a limb or be raped?"
I know the males involved in both of these events, in some cases very well, and what most confused me for a while is that they really, really aren't assholes. Seriously! They were just incredibly, incredibly insensitive. They *honestly* didn't understand just how horrid what they were doing was, and when they had it adequately expressed to them in a way in which it finally got through -- as opposed to loss of temper, tears, etc, none of which are a great way to get someone to understand exactly what they're doing wrong -- they felt terrible.
This article is obviously aimed at everyone, but mostly at that group of people: people who simply don't understand how potentially damaging the use of rape in their games can be, and how far removed it is from the other kinds of violence that we (paradoxically or no) take as commonplace and acceptable. I want to make sure that I get the point across before the event so that stuff like this doesn't happen to more people. People like you, who already understand that there are lines Not To Be Crossed Without Player Consent, aren't what I see as the problem (although I'm also trying to demonstrate that there are "lesser" shades of in-game sexual violation that need to be treated seriously, because I know that there are also lots of people who are not insensitive enough to do the kind of things I listed in this comment, but who might still seriously piss off a player by, say, getting the character pregnant without permission).
Well here's my horror story. I had been playing with a group for a couple of weeks and my male goody two shoes cleric of Lathander was captured by slaver traders. To my disgust I was sold to a bunch of gay gypsies who repeatedly raped my charsimatic cleric. I was shocked as rape jokes spead around the table. When my cleric finally enacted his bloody revenge the GM made me change the alignment from neutral good to chaotic neutral as a punishment for excessive violence and mutilation of dead bodies (my cleric was REALLY MAD). Finally, I spoke up. I said that rape did not belong at the game table and that this was offensive to both gays and straights. Suffice to say that didn't go over well with the group who were getting a good laugh over this "joke". I left the group, but afterwards I heard that a female elf PC had been raped by a drow elf PC. That caused the group to completely disolve.
I don't really have a point to make except that if this is happening to you then don't put up with it. Make yourself heard and quit if it your group turns out to be a bunch of pervs. You'll be much happier with another group.
Wow! That's quite bad. I think that beats most of the ones I've heard. I'm sorry it happened to you! But I am glad you did speak up. Good for you for having the courage to do so in such an obviously hostile setting.
What a lousy GM - rapes your character repeatedly with one of the most offensive stereotypes imaginable (the "gay rapist"), but then penalizes YOU for excessive violence...!
I'm in awe. I echo Shataina in congratulating you for speaking up, and I can't help but feel you'll find a better group. It sounds as though you can hardly fail to!
It is interesting to think about what such twistedness actually accomplishes, isn't it? One might say that it's a good way to get people emotionally involved, but it seems as though there are always other ways to do that. I wonder what it is that attracts us to that sort of thing?
Perhaps a little bit of context might help. I'm running a D&D game with a strong Call of Cthulhu-style emphasis on Cosmic Horror. I don't use alignment or standard fantasy racial stereotypes, and I've removed resurrection from the setting. I emphasize a sort of Gnostic/Zoroastrian struggle between the "true nature of the soul" and the evils perpetrated by the demiurge.
In this setting, I play mortals as people - they run the gamut from "noble" to villainous to barking mad. The Outsiders are mostly beings of utter horror. This conceit speaks to my feelings about alignment; it's my way of telling my players "Your standard perceptions of good, evil, and 'neutrality' don't apply here. You have to treat people as people. By the same token, when Cthulhu comes to town, you can't act like it doesn't apply to you."
I find this helps us explore the true limits of heroic behavior. When all is hopeless, a character's true nature is revealed. The real heroes are the ones who are willing to suffer death - or far worse - so others may live.
What has this got to do with rape? Well, we're exploring the limits of goodness, so we also have to know the limits of evil. You say below that there are some lines that shouldn't be crossed without player consent; I would go a step further and say that there are some lines that probably shouldn't be crossed at all.
Take, for example, one of my favorite stories from the so-called Cthulhu Mythos: "The Dunwich Horror" by H.P. Lovecraft. In this story, a young woman is offered by her own father as a rape-offering to a hideous, alien entity. This happens 'off-stage,' as it were; and the symbolism of the story is such that it clearly conveys much of HPL's own fears relating to women and the reproductive act. But any way you slice it, this is a story centered around what is sometimes casually called 'tentacle rape.' The monsters of the story are the resultant offspring of this incident.
I wouldn't ever go there. I just can't. I seriously doubt any of my female players (or male players who play female characters) would ever consent to such a plotline, but more importantly it's just too misogynist and twisted for me. I can conceive of it, but I don't like to. The furthest I'll go is to include Dunwich-Horror-style monsters in my setting, who presumably result from a similar episode involving some nameless, dreadfully unfortunate NPC.
I can see the objection coming (perhaps not from you, but from someone): "But that's not real, and 'regular' rape is. Why does something imaginary turn your stomach when something reflective of a very real problem seems ok to you?" I don't have a good answer: I can only say we all draw the line in different places. I will insist, perhaps feebly, that I am neither a misogynist nor a homophobe and that this is a subject that I do not like to see handled lightly. With considerable respect to OldTimer, the example of the "humorous" rape of a human man by an orc woman is something I think actually shows a little bit of insensitivity. Who am I to preach at the 'Timer, when I'm running a far darker game than he(?) ever would? No one. I don't hold myself superior. But I wouldn't ever characterize a sexual assault as amusing. (I'm a bit of a pro-Orc, anti-stereotype gamer, too, so that's important to keep in mind with reference to this particular remark.)
I've included several rapes of female NPCs in my campaign - all 'offscreen' - to help define some of my villains as villainous bastards. It's effective: the players uniformly despise them and want to see justice visited upon them.
I had a player perpetrating gay-rape on NPCs for a while. His NPC victims were all thoroughly villainous, but there was a general distaste at the table for this character and his proclivities. It was an offensive-as-all-hell stereotype, and I probably should've put a stop to it. Fortunately the character died before anyone got truly offended.
As noted, I had one PC raped by an NPC. While the player and I discussed this eventuality at some length before it happened, I now think perhaps you are right - I probably had already established this NPC character's villainy by his previous attacks against the PC's NPC best-friend. In retrospect, I think the assault was gratuitous. While the same PC was sexually coerced in the same plotline, the player really hammed up that part of the story, and it led to a fascinating subplot. But I worry that maybe I stepped over the line with the assault, even though she was "a good sport" as I somewhat patronizingly put it, and I probably won't do such a thing to a PC again. There are many, many ways to establish villainy, and to resort to one of the ultimate forms of violation seems to betray a lack of imagination on my part.
I do appreciate your clarification. I don't want to sound like a callous jerk who thinks sexual assault can be indiscriminately lumped in with the casual murder that is so frequently part of our role-playing fun.
I think a big part of the problem is that rape is sometimes taken too lightly by society at large. In one of my posts above, I reference the concept of 'tentacle rape.' I really wish I were making up the phrase, but I'm not. There are fans of Hentai out there who apparently don't have a problem with it. To me, it's indicative of a serious level of misogyny, and the fact that it's perpetrated against cartoon japanese schoolgirls doesn't really help me there.
At the risk of starting a tangential flamewar, there's a respected, modern, female philosopher (I'm trying to be charitable here) who includes a rape as the consummation of a romance in one of her major works! I was absolutely appalled when I read it - I almost gave up on her book right there. The fact that anyone has any respect for the rest of her philosophy is mind-boggling to me: rape fantasies, to me, are pathological.
While I was a teenager, my own mother innocently gave me John Norman's Ultra-Misogynist Gor series to read, thinking it was typical fantasy fare. Given the sexist tendencies in fantasy art at the time, I think she had no way of knowing what sorts of BDS&M material and hardcore misogynist diatribes the books contained. Reading them screwed me up mentally for years. I won't say I had no moral compass of my own, but sometimes it's hard to know what's right when you're a teenaged boy and some bizarre-o adult tells you that your gender is The Superior One. Man, some of the stuff I spouted from those books made my Dad angry -- I'm very lucky he was there to give me some clearer-headed perspective on things.
Against such a backdrop, I can see why some gamers "don't get it." There are things in our society - admittedly on the fringes, but still there - that seem to rationalize, justify, and sometimes perversely even seem to argue in favor of rape as a concept.
That's why I'll agree with RG, the 'Timer, and all others who call your article here important. It is. To shamelessly steal a slogan from the gay activist movement, Silence = Death. I'm glad you've broken the silence - OldTimer is not wrong to say it takes courage to do so.
My girlfriend first got involved in roleplaying in her early teens. Her dad (also a gamer) signed her up for a D&D club. Her group contained a bunch of 13-17 year old boys. Needless to say, she was the only girl (this was 1984 or so after all) and the other PCs raped her character. Now she won't go near a role playing game with a 10' pole and 50' of rope. Not even with a group of people who are her friends and can be guaranteed not to be a buch of f*cktards.
I'd love to go back in time and beat some sense into those idiots.
I think you're absolutely right about everything you've said. I also think that another issue with rape in games is that it contains several social elements that simply aren't present in the vast majority of general violent things. Yes, when it comes down to it, I'd probably rather be raped than die ... but in a game? I'd far rather have my character die than be raped. For one thing, it's extremely demoralizing and miserifying (that's probably not a word ... oh well) to play a character who's been so badly mentally wounded; you don't have to play a dead character, and an injured character rarely takes it so emotionally. For another, a lot of the feelings that are attached to rape come through strongly even during a "virtual" rape, because they're a lot more mental and social, whereas there are almost never the same effects attached to a death or injury. Not that you can't humiliate someone by say, defeating them in battle, but it's much less humiliation than the wholesale degradation that comes from rape.
I hope I'm not being insensitive by analyzing that experience in this way, but it's sort of interesting to hear about, in that it's so similar to so many gang-rape stories. I can only imagine that she echoed (in a weaker way) a lot of the feelings of a survivor of that kind of thing, such as the feelings of extreme isolation, distrust, unwillingness to be alone in such a group again, etc. I worry that such an experience could have been truly traumatic in a very real way, but that both she and possibly outside sources would be unwilling or unable to see it that way because it was all "just a game".
Actually, I just had a (male) character flipped into a female body and raped (and made pregnant) by his "evil" twin brother. This was an attempt by that NPC to take over the shared soul the two of us possess. In this case the situation is so artificial and over the top that it really didn't bother me too much...the character had already been female for a while and had a child (a different story...). Also the fact that it was so deeply embedded in a long running story line helped quite a bit. And everything was "off camera". I found out most of what happened *after* the rescue.
The fact that it happened while I wasn't there and my party wasn't paying attention when I was kidnapped annoyed me quite a bit more.
However, I think the same thing would have really bothered several of our female players if it had happened to them (we are 4 married couples). We've gamed together for over 20 years with the same GM, so I think he has a feel for what is acceptable to me and the rest of the group. This really fit the storyline, and while being annoying, was not out of bounds.
I would've really had a problem with the Gypsy situation above, or some out of the blue situation involving sex. I will say that the tolerance for sexuality in our group has varied quite a bit over time as well...so don't assume that because it was okay before that its okay now. For instance, as parents we have become *much* more sensitive to situations involving children...and now teenagers.
[Aside]
Also, please note that there is a difference between "Dominance" fantasies and "Rape" fantasies -- in one, control is surrendered by one party willingly and in the other it is taken away. The choice is quite important.
[/Aside]
As a GM, I would never dream of bringing sex into the game. We keep it at a level of fun escapism and leave potential baggage at the door. All of my players are there to forget their worries and have some laughs.
I did have a problem with a previous player that insisted on creating absolutely miserable background stories for each of his characters: typically they had been orphaned, were products and victims of incest, had been raped, mutilated, tortured, you name it. Then he played these psychological husks that were paralyzed by indecision; think "fighter with phobias of edged weapons, blood, fire, and loud noises" or "cleric that has become an atheist and so has no spellcasting ability." Their motivation? Exacting bloody, horrific, sex-and-violence type revenge on their malefactors. Oh my.
It was ridiculous. I cautioned him privately against it, but he was resolute that playing an angst-ridden, suicidal trainwreck was just his cup of tea.
Two games in, the party abandoned his 13 year old waif Psionicist with club feet in the forest and moved on. He complained; they stopped the show and said, "Dude, you are adding ZERO fun to the game. Deal with it."
He pouted and quit, and the fun-factor immediately went up. It's so nice when your players help steer the ship clear of rocky personalities.
Any situations missing from the original article? How about characters getting violated while they're unconscious?
We were playing Warhammer FRPG. This is a game where characters have Fate Points. If you get killed, pay a Fate Point and survive through some lucky happenstance. Perhaps the blow only knocked you out, and the enemy left you for dead? Perhaps there was a really huge tree under the rock wall you fell from, and the multitude of branches you hit slowed you enough to save your life? Anyway, the GM is supposed to let you off with some lost equipment and wounds that will heal in time.
I was playing a human female, one of fine breeding who had fallen on hard times. Nothing special in starting skills, but she had a few good careers and was both tough and smart. The party was sitting out the winter in a small town when it was attacked by orcs. Some heavy fighting later my character decided to flee, badly wounded. An orc managed to catch her and the next blow was fatal. OK, lets pay a Fate Point. So we wake up in a bed sometime later, feeling poorly but alive. The orcs took what supplies they needed and left the town be.
And then the GM says my character realizes she's pregnant later in spring. GAH! I felt both dizzy and physically ill at the thought. The GM certainly heard he'd gone too far, my voice wasn't exactly steady when I said the character would probably take her own life. So miscarriage it is, nothing odd for first-time pregnancies. I continued playing her for a time, but that particular character never glowed like she used to after that. Even without a bastard child she was ruined for me. Realism can go hang, I don't want to have characters raped by orcs after getting knocked out.
This GM hasn't dealt with rape in any later games, and I trust he won't. It's a sickening crime, even if I'm a man. Sex is fine in our games, as long as people keep the game going instead of doing some improvised Pôrnmaster:Lewis does Tashal City.
"We don't negotiate with fish."
-M, magician and cleric of Shar after wiping out some surrendering Sahuagin.
I thought sexual violation while unconscious went without saying, to be honest. I was more occupied with trying to address situations that people might think were reasonable, and discourage them. It never occurred to me that, once I said rape is a bad thing, anyone might think rape while asleep might be an exception.
Incidentally, I hate to sound like I'm lecturing, but I just thought I better recommend that you explicitly tell that GM not to rape your characters ever again, ever. You say you think it got across, but ... well, example: I had a character raped, and I cried. After that, I thought I'd made it real clear how bad it was, and I kept "making it clear", but the GM had the same character raped *again* later in the same game. I hadn't made it clear. Maybe he was insensitive -- hell, he definitely was insensitive -- but he still didn't realize just how awful what he'd done was, and if I'd actually said something explicit, maybe he would have.
Thanks for the great article! I linked to it for my blog series on sex in RPGs.
Taking advantage of sleeping people is sometimes argued as a lesser crime since no threat of violence was involved. But you're right, it's in the same category as getting someone so drunk they can't say yes or no.
And the situation has been made clear in later discussions. Our group has almost fallen apart over some other incidents, and it always results in a huge e-mail discussion. Everyone gets to say what they want from the games and what they absolutely DON'T want.
The reason role-played rape is so much nastier than any other role-played crime, including murder, is that rape isn't really best described as either a violent crime or a sexual crime, but a mental/emotional crime. Rape is entirely a crime of context, degredation, and dehumanization. Under proper conditions, the physical acts themselves might be exceedingly pleasant, so the atmosphere and conditions in which the acts were committed are the true offense.
Role-playing is all about creating context and atmosphere; about opening our minds and our hearts to one degree or another, in order to experience emotionally that which is outside our grasp to experience phsyically. When we engage in role-play, we make ourselves vulnerable to the crime of imagined rape in a way we do not and cannot make ourselves vulnerable to the crime of imagined murder.
Hmm. Well, I'll just say that I hope no one who thinks having sex with someone while they're unconcious is a "lesser crime" than rape ever talks to me. I can't even begin to comprehend that viewpoint.
Well said, particularly the last sentence -- and the statement that rape is entirely a crime of context is especially aptly put as well.
It's something I've been tossing around in my head for a while. One of the things that kinda bugged me about writing this article was that I wasn't writing a sociological study or even a discussion of why exactly roleplayed rape is a bad thing -- in fact, I consciously avoided both those topics. This is mainly because I was trying to get the point across that roleplayed rape is an incredibly bad thing for some people, without causing argument about whether or why roleplayed rape is a bad thing -- I think that would be astoundingly counterproductive. In short, I think it would be interesting to discuss, but I worry that discussing it will lead to rationalization about it on some peoples' part.
Hmm. Looking back over this comment, it wasn't super-relevant to what you actually said. Sorry about that. Anyway, yeah, props; if I ever actually do the kind of sociological study I'd like to do about this, I'll quote you.
Funny timing - I've barely gotten around to reading World of Darkness: Ghost Stories, and the entire Chapter 2 ("The Terrifying Tale of James Magnus") seems absolutely ripe for exploitation of the above kind. Reading the adventure (a haunted house infected with oversexed black magic kinks) kept tweaking my "rape" nerve, but it came to quite a point when page 67 rolled around. Describing the female antagonist, which can possess PCs: "It may attempt to seduce females, or possess them and use them to seduce or attack males" and then a bit later, in regards to her transmogrify ability of a possessed victim: "Characters can spare the lives of [their possessed friends] by consenting to Aiesha's sexual advances". Sounds like "Charm Person" and "But you had a choice!" to me.
Yikes. I'd thought better of White Wolf. Man, you'd think they'd at least have put a sidebar in or something ... well, just goes to show.
Always happy to be quoted in a positive light. :-)
I wouldn't worry that "discussing [why roleplayed rape is a bad thing] will lead to rationalization about it on some peoples' part," though, mostly because the people who would try to rationalize it have already made up their minds, and will manage to rationalize it to themselves whether you give them words to twist or not. Sort of like the old Infocom "Hitchhiker's Guide" game, where if you make a typo, you cause a catastrophe of cosmic proportions. And if you work and work and work and manage to never make a typo... well, in the end, you cause that exact same catastrophe.
So I'm going to go on the record and say, yes, role-playing rape is always a bad idea, in the same way that playing "shoot the tale off the donkey using live ammunition" would always be a bad idea for a party game. Sure, you could fire the gun once and do no actual harm. Or fire it twice. Or five times. Or ten. Or fifty. Or you could fire it just once, straight through the heart of your best friend, just arrived at the party to wish you a happy birthday.
Anyone who tells you there are no victims in a role-played rape is spouting BS. There are only two types of role-play rape available, and each causes it's own sort of damage:
1) Without player consent. In this type, there is a true victim, since the damage from rape is mental/emotional (per my previous post).
2) With player consent. By definition, there's no immediate victim with this type of role-play rape, but role-play is the most powerful learning tool available. And while I'm as sickened as anyone by the religious rights' attempts to oversimplify the lessons we learn from it, and to tar the whole thing as demonic brainwashing, I cannot begin to deny that nearly 30 years of role-play have had a deep, profound, and dramatic impact on my personality.
A lot of what we learn from the fantasies of RPGs depends on what made us want to act out those fantasies in the first place. Each time our role-play efforts meet with un-rebuffed success, we take it as a personal affirmation of the motives behind our fantasies, not (unless we're mentally unstable) an affirmation of the fantasies themselves, which is where the religious right gets it wrong. We've revealed a tiny fragment of our soul to our fellow players, and they've given their approval, tacitly if not explicitly. And all this plays straight into the "broken windows" model of urban crime.
The essence of the broken windows model (which was proved through practical testing to cut down crime in New York City) is that broken windows in a neighborhood increase the crime rate. In a broader sense, it means that the way to stop the big crimes before they happen (murder, rape, armed robbery) is to vigorously prosecute the small crimes (vandalism, turnstyle jumping, etc.), because people rarely jump straight into the big crimes. Instead, they learn that they can get away with the little stuff without consequences, and slowly expand their horizons to include the more severe offenses.
Player-consent role-play rape, then, is basically vandalism of the mind. It teaches the participants that they can engage in the mental and emotional vicitimization of others and get away with it. And just as few vandals ever graduate to murder, few consent-role-play rapists will ever graduate to real life rape. But I'd never, ever leave my wife or child alone with someone who got his kicks off of role-played rape any more than I'd drop them off unescorted in the middle a neighborhood full of grafitti and broken windows.
So I'm going to go on the record and say, yes, role-playing rape is always a bad idea.
I'll start by saying that I have come to agree with this position. Some lines shouldn't be crossed.
2) With player consent. By definition, there's no immediate victim with this type of role-play rape, but role-play is the most powerful learning tool available...A lot of what we learn from the fantasies of RPGs depends on what made us want to act out those fantasies in the first place. Each time our role-play efforts meet with un-rebuffed success, we take it as a personal affirmation of the motives behind our fantasies...We've revealed a tiny fragment of our soul to our fellow players, and they've given their approval, tacitly if not explicitly....Player-consent role-play rape, then, is basically vandalism of the mind. It teaches the participants that they can engage in the mental and emotional vicitimization of others and get away with it.
Here, I think you're taking a reasonable position and going rather overboard with it. Correct me if I'm wrong, but your reasoning seems to be:
1) Player and GM agree to stage in-game rape of PC
2) GM "gets off" on the rape on some level
3) GM progresses, or is encouraged to progress, to sicker and more twisted forms of interpersonal, psychological abuse.
While that's certainly a possibility, let me submit that there's at least one other possible outcome:
2) GM feels uneasy about the incident
3) GM learns a lesson about dramatics and workings of own psyche
4) GM matures as a person
In other words, lesson learned. As Shataina's article points out, and as some of the posts above indicate, a fair number of in-game rapes are perpetrated from some misguided sense of "realism" or devotion to dramatics rather than prurience and a need to dominate or victimize others.
But I'd never, ever leave my wife or child alone with someone who got his kicks off of role-played rape...
Then you're a good husband and father. I like to think the same about myself; I would not leave my wife or daughter alone with such a person, either. But it's sort of a no-brainer, you know? The phrase "who got his kicks off..." reveals that you're not talking about a healthy person. Do you understand what I mean?
There is no legitimate reason to have a rape occur in a D&D game. Rape is about hate for women and power. If anyone is sick enough to try to commit rape in a game you as the ref (DM) should simply kick them out of the game and ban them from the group. You don't want to associate with someone like that. If it is the ref (DM) that brings rape into the game then the players should simply pack up their stuff and leave, never to return. Anyone who thinks rape has a place in the game is sick and deserves to be locked up like any other sexual deviate.
Hmm.
As I said before, I have a hard time condemning people who put rape in their games after they've made absolutely, positively sure that everyone involved is okay with it. And I think there's a difference between someone who gets their kicks from RPG rape, and someone who just thinks it might be something worth exploring. After all, authors write books about rape without getting their kicks from it; I see RPGs as a similar kind of art form, in terms of possibly-harmless exploration of a theme and / or even a self-exorcism.
I'll add, though, that a little while ago I heard about a study which gave a bunch of young men accounts of rape to read. Some of the accounts were real-life retellings, and some of the accounts were fictional. From what I heard, those who read the real-life accounts were less likely to be sexual criminals, and scored better on some kind of empathy test that measured their reactions to sex crimes than the group that read the fictional accounts. (I can't vouch for this study because the person who told me about it was unable to give enough information for me to find the actual study itself and examine it; still, it's interesting.) So it seems that fictional accounts of such a thing might be a real problem (although, of course, another conclusion to be drawn here is that fictional accounts make no difference, but reading real-life accounts boosts empathy beyond what it would normally be; I wish I could track the study down and see if there was a control group).
On the other hand, I read a really interesting article a while back (http://cms.psychologytoday.com/articles/pto-19970201-000017.html), about a study that looked at two groups of people: some writing about real traumas that had happened to them, and some writing about fictional traumas. Surprisingly, both groups showed equivalent health benefits after writing their accounts. I find myself wondering if RPGs can be a similar tool, to help people deal with their inner demons or some such.
In the end, I'm also simply not convinced that even someone who actively fantasizes about rape, and gets to act it out in an RPG, is going to be more likely to act on those fantasies in real life. But I can still tell you that I wouldn't want to be alone with someone who "got his kicks" from RPG rape, either.
I started a thread over on RPG.net on another possible article on this topic (it would be more of a sociological study than anything else). It's available at http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=185593. Not sure if it'll ever get off the ground -- it's looking especially unlikely that it'll ever do so for an RPG-playing audience -- but I invite y'all to contribute to the thread at least. (Edit: if you have anything to say about my actual original post, you should probably contact me personally at this point, as the thread has -- predictably, I admit -- degenerated into something mostly useless for my purposes.)
I have to agree with everyone else that this was really a thought provoking article to read. As a GM if you're going to use rape as a plot device it has to be handled very carefully and with a certian level of taste. I also think if you are using it too often, there is an issue with someone. In my 20-some years of GMing, I think I've only used it maybe two times. Once was an NPC who had been taken by the villian before the game started, but even then all that was said was that she had been abused, there was no need to go into detial. In the end, she was the one who knew the villian's weakness and killed him. I guess in my mind while developing the story, I knew it was some type of sexual abuse, but bringing that sort of detail out to the PCs really would not have helped the story, it explained why she had such a desire to kill the villian, but the players didn't need to know and even in-game, it's something she wouldn't have shared with them. I guess this sticks out in my mind because later one of my female players took the NPC over and ran it as her PC.
The other situation was much simpler, the party had to rescue the fair maiden before the evil villian violated her. It was only used as a plot device to get the party there on time, it was never planed to really happen.
It's surprising to hear about the number of gaming groups where rape is a common occurance. And from what I read it seem that some of these smae groups go into a lot of detail about it. That just worries me! Run away, run away! A point I think someone started to make is that there things do often escalate with offenders, be they rapest or serial killers. How far are some of these people from actually physically acting it out now that they are openly talking about it and describing it?
There are some things that are just too taboo for me to throw into a game, and this is one of them. I have never played with a GM who has done this, nor would I likely play with them for very long if they did do it. Sex comes up in game from time to time (or quite often depending on the campaign), and this is fine. Murder, fine. Torture, yeah occasionally. But rape is crossing a line that shouldn't be crossed in my opinion.
When I first read this article I thought to myself 'You have got to be kidding! What a bunch of crappola.' In the thirty years I've role-played no character has ever been 'raped' by an NPC's or other players!
But then I started thinking about my experiences with some gaming groups and I realized that 'rape' is not the only 'role-played' act of violence and humiliation against players. Gamers can sometimes be quite an insular group of people. Can you say 'Deliverance'? And I've seen new players to a gaming group treated to one humiliation after another as a sort of rite of passage. That got me thinking. Traditional role-playing has hit hard times of late with diminishing numbers of players, many of whom have moved over to online gaming. Could one reason for this exodus be the fact that some of these people were ill-treated during gaming sessions, and find it easier to game alone in a room with a computer, in complete control of their environment?
Maybe the idea of rape ought to be extended to how game groups treat not only new players but everyone involved in their group. That's such an easy thing to say but here are some guidelines:
1) It is up to the GM to make a game fun, fair and entertaining for everyone. If the GM cannot control the players, or allows some elements of the group to bully others, they're no GM. Move on and find another group to play with.
2) Hey Guys: Hello it's 2005, and its time you started treating women as people. I know this may come as a shock but there are female role-players. Try treating them as role-players and friends. My group has two regular female players, both would kick the who-haw at of anyone stupid enough to treat them as anything other than thinking independent adults.
3) Game groups have to have standards of conduct that are observed by all members. If you can't conduct yourself as a reasoning, well mannered and intelligent person, I suggest you play alone off-line on your computer.
Keep Rolling the Bones!
1) It is up to the GM to make a game fun, fair and entertaining for everyone. If the GM cannot control the players, or allows some elements of the group to bully others, they're no GM. Move on and find another group to play with.
I'd have to disagree with this. At the social level, it's everyone at the table's responsibility to make sure the session is fun, fair and entertaining for everyone.
MArsden
When I'm not in my right mind, my left mind gets pretty crowded.
Sure, but a GM bears a heavier burden of this responsibility than the average player. You have a good point: players cannot reasonably expect the GM to act as policeman and cheerleader for the entire table. But when things are aimless or headed in a bad direction, players rightly look to the GM for guidance. I think a good GM gives good guidance, and a bad GM gives no guidance or actively moves the game in a bad direction.
Interesting. I come here on occasion to read the articles. This one actually prompted me to join and respond.
I've been playing off and on over the last 20+ years. Now we can be pretty sick in our own right, i remember one character who took the description of a monster (erect hyena-men) a bit to far, and abused their corpses after we killed them (surely you didn't think we lost did you). But the question of rape has never come up. Being a guy that likes to play a female character, this article brought me up short. Made me wonder how i'd feel if my character were forced into something like that.
Now i've been known to come up with some very bizarre, perverse stuff in my time. Sickened co-workes with some of my utterances but i'm actually a bit shocked that this has never even occured to me. Knowing the guys i play with, this would probably never come up (now watch it come up next time we get together) but the article is very thought provoking. Good job!
I recall a few years back that a certain chain of department stores in the UK (who shall remain nameless) were involved in a criminal rehabilitation program - allowing prisoners on day-release to come and work in their stores as part of an effort to re-integrate them into society. They proudly announced, however, that convicted sex offenders would be excluded from the scheme; presumably to reassure their customers that they weren't going to be served by any rapists or child molesters. Arsonists who had burnt people to death, however, received no such exclusion.
Seemingly, modern society finds sex offenders even more abhorrent than actual murderers who completely terminate people's existence. Let's get a sense of perspective here; rape is NOT as great an evil as murder. No, I'm sorry, it just ISN'T. You can hand-wring all you like about how deeply it scars people, how it's a terribly, terribly personal crime that stays with you for the rest of your life. It's not as bad as NOT HAVING a rest of your life.
Of course, there are those who will use the argument that death is inevitable whereas rape is not - appealing to the notion that murderers have only hastened the onset of something that would happen anyway. But if you subscribe to this idea, you are effectively claiming that all kinds of death are equivalent and that life has no value because of its temporary nature. Why bother teaching your kids to cross the road properly? They're going to die one day anyhow....
So am I claiming that the modern day abhorrence of rape and sex crimes in mainstream Western society is unjustified? Absolutely not! (Careful - watch out for the double negative there...) We should bear in mind however that this is presently a very emotive subject in people's minds, even the minds of people who have never personally been touched by such a crime - in reaction to our relatively recent enlightenment regarding the centuries of misogynism that women have been subjected to in the past. Not that I am denying the existence nor the atrocity of male rape either, but the main driving factor in getting society to recognise that rape is a truly awful crime that is never 'deserved' by the victim has been the efforts of the women's movement in drawing attention to the severity of the crime and highlighting the disturbing frequency with which it occurs - especially if situations like 'date rape' are considered. And the battle still goes on in people's hearts and minds; there are still too many folks out there who, on hearing about a young girl raped while out late at night (dressed perhaps somewhat immodestly), will point the finger at HER and say 'she was asking for it'. However if she were subsequently killed as well the same people wouldn't dream of saying 'she was asking to be killed'. There is a strong consensus of opinion on murder, hence it is somewhat less emotive a topic of social discourse than rape.
Traumatic as rape is, it isn't the only thing that traumatises. Rape victims are certainly traumatised by their experience; but people who have been severely tortured are also traumatised. People who suffer serious injuries are traumatised. People who see dear friends or loved ones killed in front of them are traumatised. Different things affect a given individual in different ways and it is very hard to draw some kind of universal scale for traumatic experience. But we should not underestimate the trauma you would suffer if you were involved in, say, a heavy combat action in which you see several friends turned into steaming piles of organs and you yourself lose a limb or an eye or suffer some other serious injury. Nor should we underestimate the trauma that victims of torture feel, or the pain of concentration camp survivors that lingers with them even to this day.
Time to turn our attention to roleplaying games. Now I feel quite strongly that we should be wary of letting political correctness intrude too far into our fantasy worlds. I understand the temptation to do so, because of course we may be fearful that people scrutinising those worlds will see them as a realm of 'wish fulfillment' and the expression of our inner biases, prejudices and desires rather than an attempt to create a 'quasi-authentic' millieu. Now if you want to have a game that resembles the adventures of the Care Bears then that's entirely up to you, but I definitely believe that a GM shouldn't be lambasted if he or she wants a game of gritty realism or dark horror - on the proviso that that's what the players also want.....a good GM will know how far to go and where the lines are drawn with their own group. A GM dealing with a new group of players needs to watch their step, but this can be said of all aspects of the game.
Most RPGers tend to be fairly hardened to the horrors of hand-to-hand combat (at least whilst remaining in the safety of their armchairs) for various reasons. Firstly, we have strange double standards with regard to what we find acceptable in the popular media. Graphic violence on the big or small screen is held to be more acceptable than graphic scenes of sexual congress (consensual or otherwise). Perhaps this is because it's relatively easy to fake up some violence, but sex scenes are not so easy to fake - with increasingly sophisticated and more affordable CGI perhaps this will change - but for the moment when we see people 'doing it' on screen we can be fairly sure they REALLY ARE 'doing it' (If the action is just as - ahem - 'graphic' as much of the violence we see is!). As the concerned father of a young child, I have recently become much more aware of how much aggression and violence is depicted on TV even during daylight hours. The makers of 'The Simpsons' knew just what they were talking about when they created 'The Itchy & Scratchy Show'! Conversely we don't often see a rape scene, and when one does occur it's never a graphic depiction, nor is it a throwaway piece of violence, but rather a huge piece of drama that's invariably (on television) swiftly followed by a helpline phone number for rape victims to call, firmly stamping 'PC' credentials on the whole affair.
Secondly, combat in RPG systems tends to be very abstract, a dice-rolling contest between players and GM to decide who lives and who dies. It's very easy to forget the horror of it all. And in games that have alignment systems and entrenched racial hatreds (institutionalised in the very rules themseles in some cases - aren't D&D Rangers the ultimate racists?) it's easy to forget about the moral dimension and it's easy to forget the pain and suffering. How many GM's inflict post-resurrection trauma on characters that are brought back from the dead? How many role-players voluntarily assume such trauma?
Torture is another evil that isn't really portrayed in its true depth in films and TV. A hollywood film producer's idea of a torture scene usually involves a muscular hero strapped into some device that inflicts pain intangibly or perhaps with crackly blue electrical special effects. The hero sweats and strains and grits his teeth and maybe screams in a manly way as his tormenters turn some dial, but he refuses to give in. Real torture is much more gruesome, debilitating, permanent in both physical and mental effect and often carried out just for sadistic pleasure. Anyone who thinks that rape should never occur in an RPG 'as a matter of principle' but who thinks a bit of torture now and again is acceptable should think again.
So, my basic message thus far, in a nutshell is - if your game allows people to kill one another, you shouldn't feel the need to ban or exclude any other kind of activity merely 'on principle', regardless of whether it is between player characters or NPCs or both.
BUT that's not the whole story of course!
A player character captured by an arch-enemy and 'ravished' against their will (because, basically, the arch-enemy is a complete bastard and that's what they do) is one thing. I'm certainly not suggesting that the GM should AIM to accomplish this state of affairs, but it may be one of those things that arises 'naturally' in a game where the action isn't following a strict storyline. One of my own characters is a female magic user and whilst she definitely wouldn't relish the prospect of being raped, if one of the GM's bad guys captured her somehow she would rather submit to being a concubine (in the hope of eventual escape or rescue) than be vivisected for their amusement. And her desire for revenge could add an interesting dimension to her character. No, I'm not saying that her getting raped would be anything to be wished for, absolutely not - in fact I would probably feel a bit upset. That's the interesting thing about roleplay - you can create a character who you can then empathise with and get just a taste of what it would be like to BE them without actually BEING them. And unless your characters live in a Care Bears type campaign world, you sometimes have to take the rough with the smooth.
However, a bunch of teenage boys having their player characters rape a girl's new character when she joins their group 'just for a laugh' is something else entirely. They are doing it, not because they are being good roleplayers, but because THEY PERSONALLY find the idea funny. This is a clear projection of their own personal biases into the game. Those are the kids that could grow up to be date-rapists if someone doesn't set them straight. Because they think that rape would be OK if they were in a situation where they could get away with it.
The situation where a GM has a particular player character raped a second time round 'because it's funny' also needs to examine their own motives carefully - especially if they planned the whole set-up. Someone who plans such a set-up for their own amusement or to win the approval of some misogynistic peer-group IS an asshole!
These kind of unhealthy patterns of behaviour are not rape in a 'real' sense of course. But in a very real sense they are a form of BULLYING and INTIMIDATION. In just the same way, a GM who continually kills a particular players' characters because the rest of the group finds it funny is also performing an act of bullying. Whilst there should be room for terrible acts to occur in roleplaying game worlds, there should be no room for bullying at the gaming table.
an interesting outlook there , lurkinggherkin, and a thoughtful one.
just a note: you said:
"Graphic violence on the big or small screen is held to be more acceptable than graphic scenes of sexual congress.."
I'd like to emphasize that this is a very american view. In other countries (i.e. most of Europe) the relation is reversed and sex (or erotic imagery) is more prevalent than violence. In still other places, both are equally abundant (whether common, rare or even completly banned).
I think I'm hearing what you're saying...but I can't quite climb on board the boat.
I think violence can be more acceptable than rape in an RPG (or game, or comic, or movie, or whatever) depending on how it's conveyed.
Star Wars is a tale of good versus evil. Guys on both sides get killed / maimed. The violence goes hand-in-hand with the adventure aspects of the movie. Rape has no place in the SW movies and I fail to see what rape could bring to them.
Many RPG's are done in the same vein as Star Wars -- basic tales of good versus evil...adventures. It's an escape from reality -- most of us don't actually crusade against orcs or stormtroopers. RPG's exist to let us be somebody that we're not...if only for a little while...thigns we can't be in the real world. Killing an orc and murdering a human...not exactly the same thing. But, raping a PC and raping someone...well...
Okay, so what if some want a more realistic game? Something grittier. I still see no reason to inlcude rape. What's the upside to having one of the PC's raped? There are too many opportunities to have fallout between the DM and the PC's...or the PC's and the PC's...depending on how the rape is handled.
I don't think we can use the "rape isn't as bad as murder" aspect to justify it. One, that's debatable depending on who you are -- if I think rape is worse and I'm deemed a moron for it...fine, then I'm a moron and I'll deal with it...but I'm not changing my mind. Two, would anyone ever make a video game where the player goes around and rapes other people? I seriously doubt it...and I'd be curious to know what kind of people *wouldn't* find that disturbing.
There's just certain things that don't jive with certain things. I think one of those things is rape and gaming.
Why does death jive? Because in a game, death doesn't have the consequence that it does in real life. If you guy dies...he can come back via a quarter / restart switch / or raise dead spell. How would you "take back" the rape? Most PC's kill orcs...but very few murder.
Also..in the real world...murder is about malice, hatred, loss-of-control, wrath, impulse...something along those lines. But in the game world...most death isn't murder...death in RPG's is more about victory, justice, questing...things like that.
Rape is about hummiliation, helplessness, torture, violation, and perversion. I'm at a loss in figuring out what kind of alternate meaning rape can have in a game.
Sorry...I just feel that certain things have no place at the game table.
I think violence can be more acceptable than rape in an RPG (or game, or comic, or movie, or whatever) depending on how it's conveyed.
My wife disagrees with you. She can't understand why anyone would want to invent a game where the object of the game is to go around killing things or people - for whatever thinly disguised justification.
In a game where monsters have alignments and are intrinsically evil, players can conveniently claim that they are justified in killing those monsters because their 'detect evil' ability registers 'bad guy' - regardless of any actual evidence (or lack thereof) of wrongdoing. But are you trying to say that players of games don't actually enjoy the act of virtual killing and violence? The satisfaction of scoring a hit and dealing a deadly wound?
Most games sanitise violence by avoiding things like the permanent disablements or disfigurements that can arise from being hit by a bloody great sword. In Star Wars, you can get repaired anyhow, so no worries there.
What I am trying to say is that violence in games is such an accepted part of the games culture that gamers tend to take for granted that it is acceptable. Not everyone finds it so.
Star Wars is a tale of good versus evil. Guys on both sides get killed / maimed. The violence goes hand-in-hand with the adventure aspects of the movie. Rape has no place in the SW movies and I fail to see what rape could bring to them.
I'd just like to point out that Star Wars is a film for kids. Check the rating.
Do you imagine that Palpatine, steeped in the ways of the Dark Side, would never have commited an act of rape in his life? Because it's just 'too humiliating and perverse'?
Okay, so what if some want a more realistic game? Something grittier. I still see no reason to inlcude rape.
It depends on what kind of 'reasons' govern the action in your game. If the things that happen in your game are always driven by OOG reasons and RL sensibilities of the players and DM, then fair enough, although I find that that kind of game is somewhat problematic in itself, for other reasons. If you say that you don't allow rape to EVER occur in your game because it's just too offensive IRL, you're kind of saying that anything else that happens in the game IS OK IRL.
What I was saying is that rape could potentially occur in a game where you have 'evil' creatures and people. Newsflash, rape is an evil act (according to most people's definition of evil in modern western culture, and certainly according to those who have been raped) and so why should the bad guys exclude it from their lexicon of evil? The 'reason' for the rape occuring isn't an OOG one, the DM isn't doing it for fun or something, he/she is simply extrapolating the likely actions of their disturbingly evil NPCs. When running my NPCs I don't think 'What do I want the NPC to do?', I tend to think 'What would the NPC do in this situation, given the impression I have of their personality?' This is why, for instance, monsters and opponents of the player characters in my campaigns often flee or surrender when it becomes clear that the odds are against them winning (if they've taken 50% casualties and have barely scratched the PCs in return, they'd be stupid not to). In fact my individual monsters tend to try to back out of a fight when they are 75% damaged, especially if they haven't scored a decent hit in return. Just about the only creatures that fight to the death in my games are zombies or golems or similar.
What's the upside to having one of the PC's raped?
Just like in RL, there are none. The only 'upside' is that it might make for a more consistent and believable campaign. More 'quasi-authentic'. I'm not suggesting that you should consciously choose to throw in a few rapes to MAKE your campaign authentic. I'm just saying that if a situation arises where NPCs could 'reasonably' be expected to carry out such an act, and provided you know that any players involved have a sufficient degree of psychological player/character seperation to not be personally traumatised or offended, then you shouldn't consciously avoid this occuring. In a sense, where possible, you should avoid 'intervention' in the game reality for the sake of political correctness.
At this point, I'd like to mention as an aside, that a player character has never actually BEEN raped in any of my campaigns. I'm just saying that it's certainly not excluded as a possibility. And I'm absolutely certain the players are aware of that.
There are too many opportunities to have fallout between the DM and the PC's...or the PC's and the PC's...depending on how the rape is handled.
See my comments above about 'a sufficient degree of psychological player/character seperation' and my earlier comments about GM's having to tread with care when dealing with a group of players that they don't know very well.
I don't think we can use the "rape isn't as bad as murder" aspect to justify it. One, that's debatable depending on who you are -- if I think rape is worse and I'm deemed a moron for it...fine, then I'm a moron and I'll deal with it...but I'm not changing my mind.
I would never call you a moron for having this opinion. For some people, they think they would rather die than be raped, although I suspect that if put in an actual RL pants-wetting situation where they have to make a choice I suspect that many of them will change their minds. It also makes a difference if you have kids; you wouldn't want to leave them alone in the world if there's another option no matter how grim. Without going into details I was in a situation not too long ago where I genuinely thought I was about to die and the main thing on my mind was the anguish that my death would cause to my wife and daughter.
Two, would anyone ever make a video game where the player goes around and rapes other people?
Firstly, unpleasant though it is to contemplate, I think that someone would and someone either has, or will - though it certainly wouldn't be a 'mainsream phenomenon' in western society. There are more nasty people about in the world than you might imagine who would play this game. Your neighbour two doors down the street might be one of them. The well-groomed corporate CEO that you never get to meet might be one of them.
I wouldn't be at all surprised if a trawl of japanese on-line gaming sites turned up something unpleasant of this nature. Consider the tentacle rape scenes that occur in certain animé videos.
Secondly, would anyone ever make a video game where the player character goes around killing people? Yes, they would - and have done - because they are able to add a justification for the killing. The people being killed are 'bad guys' and killing them terminates their ability to perform future acts of evil, whereas raping them would not. Rape doesn't 'fix' anything, and you can't add a veneer of justification to it. However, try to tell me that a player doesn't feel a sense of smug satisfaction about taking down an opponent? Rather than a sense of sorrow that they have to kill this person, or thing? How often do you see games where enemies are taken prisoner and an attempt is made to re-habilitate them? How often do you see games where enemies surrender and their surrender is accepted and they are treated as POWs? Please don't kid yourself, player characters (under the guidance of their players) often do some pretty ugly things in the name of 'Good'. Most game designers (of video games) tend not to present people with moral dilemmas and generally speaking the monsters/bad guys just attack mindlessly until they are killed, thus conveniently de-humanising them for the player's benefit.
The point is, that no-one designs games in which the point of the game is, ostensibly, just killing things. There's always an in-game reason provided for the killing. Similarly, non-one other than a sicko (of which there are more than you may imagine) would be expected to design a game where the point of the game is, ostensibly, just raping things. But it is entirely possible that a game could be designed where such a thing could occur, under certain conditions, for in-game reasons.
Why does death jive? Because in a game, death doesn't have the consequence that it does in real life. If you guy dies...he can come back via a quarter / restart switch / or raise dead spell.
How convenient. Ever played in a campaign where resurrection isn't permitted?
How about a campaign where people actually role-play the trauma of death? A resurrected character is plagued by nightmares about the moments leading up to, and the actual moment of, death? Quite simply, you are underestimating how traumatic death is.
If you say that the resurrection magic somehow erases the trauma from the character's mind, you should also allow magic to be able to erase the trauma of a rape from someone's mind. How about a Restoration spell in D&D? That fixes quite a few things.
How would you "take back" the rape?
See above.
Most PC's kill orcs...but very few murder.
When is killing an orc justified, and when is it murder?
Luckily, orcs look very ugly and they 'ping' as evil on the alignment radar so most people don't worry about killing them even if they've never actually seen them commit an evil act. So what if the dungeon you've invaded is their home? They have no right to use force on you to try to drive you out, do they, because you're the 'good' guys....uh-huh?
Also..in the real world...murder is about malice, hatred, loss-of-control, wrath, impulse...something along those lines. But in the game world...most death isn't murder...death in RPG's is more about victory, justice, questing...things like that.
Yep. Victory and justice against bad people who actually commit evil acts within the game setting.....like rape.
Questing? Why would you kill someone because you're questing? Because they're in your way?
Rape is about hummiliation, helplessness, torture, violation, and perversion. I'm at a loss in figuring out what kind of alternate meaning rape can have in a game.
It doesn't have any alternate meaning that I can see, within the game.
Sorry...I just feel that certain things have no place at the game table.
I also agree that certain things have no place 'at the game table' (as opposed to 'within the game').
In my case, I am more concerned about player vs player conflict or player vs DM conflict, or bullying and intimidation - which are the things that can sometimes go on at gaming tables in real life, especially (but not exclusively) amongst younger players. The fact is that if these things manifest themselves in-game via actions such as PC vs PC rape, then removing the possibility of this occuring in the game has simply denied the aggressor one channel for expression of their aggression. They will find another, such as PC vs PC killing or PC vs PC torture. Or even stealing their goods or property, repeatedly. If the DM is involved as the bullying party it's even worse (and possibly harder to spot that it's happening).
When this kind of behaviour occurs, I'm of the opinion that it's better to deal with it at the OOG source rather than seeking to impose artificial restrictions on in-game behaviour.
Sure, the nature of most RPG's involves some form of violence. If that doesn't float some people's boat...then they don't have to play those games. I've always been bewildered by this -- if people don't like the violence of a movie...then they don't have to watch that movie. Just because something is there, doesn't mean that it has to be consumed.
Anyway, it seems that the Real World and the Fantasy world are getting confused here.
Most people that I know play RPG's as an escape from reality...they don't do it to experience Real Life situations. In my games, players don't pay taxes, don't have to worry about who to vote for, don't worry about buying new lawnmowers, or putting gas in the car...we get enough of that in the Real World. We play games to take a break from Reality (amongst other reasons).
I find rape abhorrent...so I steer away from it in my games. My PC's don't get raped...and, in turn, they don't get to rape. And, political correctness be damned, I'm not going to throw a rape into my game because "that's what should have happened." We don't include events in our game because it's logical. Give me a break.
I don't find slayi